divided.

This episode of “divided.” reframes how political rhetoric clouds our collective mental health, exploring the deep psychological effects of today’s divisive political landscape. Experts weigh in on whether we can lift the fog and find healing amidst the growing division.

Armon Owlia: Coming up on “This American Divide…”

Owlia: Better research must be done. Otherwise, there is no accountability.

Sharon McMahon: Media literacy is going to be an ongoing and important topic.

Ceally Smith: It helped me move the energy, so that's something that I focused on.

David Barstow: If you’re a responsible news organization, then you don’t repeat that zombie statistic.

Owlia: Looking at only one side does a great disservice to the subject and the public…

Owlia: Do you like what you see?

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Michael Smerconish: Is social media harmful? That’s the question being raised and debated.

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Joe Fryer: We’ve got families all over the country who are dealing with this.

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Tom Costello: As anti-Semitic content has surged on Twitter after Elon Musk, who emphasized free speech, took full control. Use of the N-word also jumped 500 percent.

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Jo Ling Kent: After close reviews of the President’s recent tweets, it banned him, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

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President Joe Biden: It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy.

Alisyn Camerota: The alleged attacker posted conspiracy theories on Facebook.

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Brian Latimer: The social media business is evolving a lot these days.

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Alisyn Camerota: “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland announcing he’s taking a break from social media for the sake of his mental health.

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Jake Tapper: Cherished ideals of free speech are in the hands of erratic billionaires.

Owlia: It’s time to examine “This American Divide.”

Owlia: This is a problem that has existed long before any of us. After a long journey through history, technology, psychology, political science, and education, we find one thing to be sure– any solution we must implement won’t be simple. Like I said from the start…

Owlia (in “A Brief History of Politics”): The polarization we see today is just the first sprouts of a tree planted centuries prior, and if you know anything about removing plants, especially ones that have grown for centuries, it’s never that easy to clear the roots.

Owlia: Will the solutions presented here be realistic? Yes. And no. Any type of solution needs to be SMART. Not just literal smart decisions but also SMART decisions in their being specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, and timely. However, its success relies on everyone agreeing on one thing– things need to change for the better for all of us. First, we need to mutually understand that what we hear from the most influential people in America, or the world may not be, in court-speak, “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” As we’ve seen, it’s easy to put a piece of information out there that may be false, then market it as truth.

David Barstow: My name is David Barstow. I teach investigative reporting at Berkeley Journalism. Before that, I spent 20 years working for The New York Times, almost all of that in the investigative unit. 

Owlia: On top of winning four Pulitzer Prizes for individual reporting, Barstow has made a career out of holding prominent political figures, including former President Donald Trump, accountable. Notably, he co-authored the Times' investigative piece looking into the tax schemes made by the Trump and his family.

Barstow: If you can just put the “fake news” brand on something, it means you don’t actually have to engage in the substance of what those articles are actually delivering.

Owlia: Now, how exactly do we address that? Assume everything we hear from authority and people of influence is a lie? No. We already do that right now, with deadly consequences. However, we must both learn and practice better critical thinking. We must look beyond our own point of view and try to see things from every possible angle. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Think with your head and heart.” We all know how to think with our hearts, but our heads? Questionable. The information centers need to help guide us better. Institutions such as the news media and social media platforms must change to better crack down on helping distinguish what is misconception, misinformation, rhetoric, and lie versus what is the truth, backed up by facts that can be proved without interpretation. Reporters, for example, must avoid letting their personal views get in the way of their reporting. Both parties came to power in the same democratically elected process, so to treat one favorably over another is a disservice. Even if the reporter admires who they have in front of them, they deserve just as strong and intense a questioning as someone they may dislike or oppose. If someone lies or spreads misinformation without immediate correction, in this age where everything basically “lives forever,” all it takes is one utterance to become misinformed.

Barstow: If you’re a responsible news organization, then you don’t repeat that zombie statistic.

Owlia: Look again at Bernie Sanders' "Meet The Press” appearance on February 18, 2018. During the interview with Chuck Todd, Sanders claimed…

Bernie Sanders: Forty percent of the guns in this country are sold without any background checks. 

Owlia: Before Sanders said it in 2018, President Obama made this same claim five years prior after the events of Sandy Hook. In 2013, after the Post fact-checked Obama, the 40% statistic was determined to be, as the Post claimed, "stale." By 2018, new studies published the year prior showed the 40% statistic to be false, as the real numbers were 22% of gun owners obtaining a firearm between 2015 and 2017 without a background check and 13% among purchased firearms. However, it was not challenged on the air and allowed to go uncorrected until the Post fact-checked it two days later.

Barstow: The propagandists are the people who, who they say something. They're, like, it becomes clear that what they said was false and they just keep repeating it over and over and over again. That is not journalism.

Owlia: Better research must be done; mistakes this apparent cannot happen. Otherwise, there is no accountability.

Barstow: A news organization says something, it's nonsense. And another news organization actually is the thing that points out that it's nonsense. Right? And that's like, that, that actually is what should be happening. Is that when news outlets get things wrong and they do get things wrong all the time, then, then other news outlets are, like, very quick to, like, point that out and to, to say, like, they got it wrong. 

Owlia: Additionally, journalists have a prevailing attitude that only one side of the issue is enough to do good reporting. According to data from the Pew Research Center, 59% of journalists who believe misinformation is a big problem also believe that all sides do not always deserve equal coverage. Both must be acknowledged to help bridge the gap between what is true and false. Even before considering this factor, the issues we face are multi-dimensional and not monochromatic. Looking at only one side does a great disservice to the subject and the public. 

Barstow: Where the journalism is terrible is when you come at something from a point of view and you just, like, filter out anything that doesn't support your preexisting ideas about how the world works, where you, like, filter out information that would completely undermine your hypothesis of the story. 

Owlia: News media is not the only institution that must change. More important than the information we learn is how we learn it. The two factors that must be improved– not only how we learn and apply critical thinking, but updating media literacy courses to better accommodate the world we live in. 

Sharon McMahon: I’m Sharon McMahon. I’m a Jefferson Award winner for Outstanding Public Service By A Private Citizen. I’ve been in a variety of publications, news outlets, you know, that sort of thing.

Owlia: McMahon, also known as "America's Government Teacher," has combated against misinformation through her podcast, "Sharon Says So."

McMahon: I think media literacy is going to be an ongoing and important topic.

Owlia: Already, the Office of Educational Technology, which operates under the United States Department of Education, has developed a solution– a Digital Literacy Accelerator which would provide tools in K through 12 education directly addressing social media misinformation, including “Fake News Fitness,” “Keeping It Real: Using Deepfakes to Combat Misinformation in Multiple Languages,” “Little Tech,” “Agents of Influence,” and “Journalism Jumble.” Such tools and games directly address combating misinformation and disinformation, promoting critical thinking in evaluating social media sources and determining if they are reliable. State-by-state, there is much work to be done. In only 18 states so far, there are either laws currently in place or being debated in statehouses that would fully embrace changes and teach better digital media literacy in the K through 12 system– California, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware. On top of that, the government needs to take collective action and start to regulate social media like other communication institutions, such as television and newspapers. In fact, the Supreme Court, at time of writing, is arguing such a case that would create massive precedent as to the accountability of social media companies.

McMahon: There's really no question that, I mean, I don't know of anybody who doesn't think that Section 230 needs to be reformed. It has failed to keep pace with the digital developments. It has failed to anticipate things like YouTube algorithms. It has failed to anticipate what social media would look like today. You know, it was written in 1996, when you would like, dial up on your, you know, would make a bunch of the modem, wouldn't tie up your phone line and make a bunch of noises. And then the sites you could visit were, like, AOL. You know what I mean? It, it really failed to anticipate, obviously, for good reason. So it needs to be reformed, no question. But that is part of it.

Owlia: Social media companies need to understand such changes will mean long-term survival, not just for the companies but for the public overall.

McMahon: They have the ability to police their platforms if they choose to. So I do think, again, this would go along with a reform of Section 230. They do bear some responsibility because they are profiting dramatically. Personally, I don't think that you should be able to make billions of dollars in ways that are actively harming your users. That's not to say that everybody who uses social media is harmed. Not at all. I love social media. I've made a career on social media. Social media has done tremendously valuable things for me. But I do get death threats. I do have people figuring out where my children go to school. I do have people telling me to kill myself. I do have people sending me hate mail. So there's, you know, do I personally hold Instagram responsible for that? No, I don't. But when we're talking about minors and profiting off of the eyeballs, the attention of minors, you do have a heightened responsibility beyond what adults are responsible for.

Owlia: However, simply modifying and enforcing Section 230 won’t be enough. Further legislation that would be preventionary rather than reactionary would assist in handling the misinformation crisis.

McMahon: One of the things that they, this is one of the issues before the Supreme Court right now is how responsible are they for their algorithms? How, you know, like to what extent should they be held responsible for the algorithms that push harmful content to people, whether they're a minor or an adult? YouTube is like finding a needle in a haystack, right? There are billions of videos on YouTube and they want to keep you on the platform because that's how they make money off of you. And so consequently, they're going to push content to you that it thinks you will enjoy based on what you or your travels around the Internet, not just your use on the site, your travels around the Internet as a whole. That's not my responsibility as a user. I can't control any of that. That's their responsibility to, to responsibly use algorithms and to responsibly profit off of their users. It's not your responsibility to profit off of their users. So, no, I don't think they are being held accountable to the extent that they should be. I do think they're, personally that they are responsible for their algorithms. They made them. Nobody else has control over them but them. And in some ways, they have failed to anticipate the repercussions, the huge repercussions that their algorithms have had in the real world.

Owlia: A reliable way to hold a company accountable is financially. Laws and consumer attitudes must change to create an environment where social media companies would be punished for misinformation and fiscally rewarded for cracking down on misinformation and taking active steps to heal the problems they've caused. This would include the companies becoming more transparent about their operations and allowing government oversight.

Kara Fox: I'm Kara Fox. I'm a third year in the clinical psychology graduate program at UNC. I'm pursuing my Ph.D., um, and just got my Master's last fall. 

Owlia: Fox's research specializes in the clinical impact of social media on adolescent development, a time when we are highly vulnerable to dependency issues.

Fox: Everything that came out a couple of years ago with, like, Facebook and, or like, Meta doing internal investigations and knowing that Instagram was harming young girls but like, not doing anything about it. Yeah. Look, I think that there needs to be more accountability for these companies and transparency like, they, I think it's a real problem that they have all of this, all these resources, all this money to, like, do all this research, but like, it's under their own umbrella that they can hold close to their chest and not share despite it affecting so many people out there. But I don't think that there's anything, like, legally that really addresses that appropriately yet. So, yeah, I would love to see more accountability for these social media companies and, like, not see, I don't know, kids get so affected, like, in the mix of all these money grabs. But I don't know what the answer is, so I don't really know what the recommendations are that I would give. But yeah, I think they, I think they should be held more responsible.

Owlia: Social media companies must find ways to incorporate fact-checking systems and mental health checks into posts. And it's not impossible to do. YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram accomplished such feats for posts regarding the 2020 election, the validity of news sources, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fox: I do think like some of the stuff we've seen recently that they've done like, initi… like, um, implementing kind of mental health checks, like, if they kind of detect that someone's searching for something risky like, or, you know, searching for suicide or self-harm or anorexia and like trying to find those communities online, they have put in some stops and checks in place there. But I don't know. The last time I kind of interacted with those, they were like, “Are you sure you want to search this?” And like, I can see a kid just like, tapping, “Yeah,” but there's also, you know, age limits and parental limits and stuff because the technology has advanced a lot. So, there is the, is more of an ability for parents to monitor that. And that's really tricky because I don't think that, like, you know, when these platforms become so mammoth, like they cannot regulate every single second, everything that's out there, like it's just going to be so much content on everything that's accessible. So it's a really tricky question on, like, how you would, like, I know there's been some studies kind of doing some, like, language analysis on kinds of posts that are more suicidal or risky to see, like, trying to identify and, like, teach these, like, A.I. almost to identify like whether somebody is, like, actually at risk.

Owlia: So, yes, on an institutional level, a lot of change needs to happen. But that pales in comparison to another factor; one which will either make or break these recommendations. We are the horses being taken to the river, but we must make the choice to drink and do it consistently. In other words, we take personal responsibility and accountability.

Ceally Smith: My name is Ceally Smith and I’m an entrepreneur. I would say that I was a believer of QAnon at one time. So, I don't believe that it is social media's responsibility to be able to control how humans respond, will react.

Owlia: Remember, psychologically, our brains tend to stick to what we feel is true rather than what may actually be true.

Todd Washburn: My name is Todd Washburn. I teach a course called "The Polarization of American Politics" that I've taught since the fall of 2019.

Owlia: Washburn teaches the course at the Harvard Extension School.

Washburn: There are ways to make people, to make the scales fall from people's eyes. One of the ways is by putting them in mixed groups, in groups of people who don't always agree with them. And so, that mixing and what I'm saying to you is the one of the biggest problems that one of the biggest causes of polarization is we are so well-sorted. That mixing is really effective for preventing people from going down what we'll call “rabbit holes.” It's really effective. More mixing, less sorting.

Owlia: Getting out of the echo chamber is not easy. However, it's an action vital to move forward and tackle this issue head-on. Who knows? You may even find someone struggling as much as you are. What can be more healing than coming together?

Washburn: When, when we, when we care about an issue very much, we, humans, we're hardwired this way, engage in what's called "motivated reasoning." We reason not to find the truth, but to defend what we already believe, if that makes sense, that's motivated reasoning and education gives you a lot of skills and tools to reason very effectively. And so, look, I'm not arguing that people should therefore get less education. Education itself is not the problem. Our polarization is the problem. And the fact that we are so divided, but we can use, but, but highly educated people can use the skills they developed through education, the gathering and marshaling of evidence, making effective arguments, hearing counter arguments; all of those skills can be put to use defending your position rather than just seeking objective truth. And when we're really divided, our brains are wired to make us want to defend our positions. Seeking objective truth is not an easy thing to do.

Owlia: Families can work together and learn how to communicate with each other. Separating people from the screens and having real human moments helps allow for more positive interactions and builds essential skills. Once again, Kara Fox.

Fox: Parents and teens, I think, I would encourage more communication. Just in general, like teens like to talk about their experiences. It's helpful for them to, like, feel understood and also to understand on their own as they're processing it while they're talking. Mindfulness is something that is kind of an interesting, like, base for possible intervention and that, like, spending some time reflecting on what you're doing online, why you're doing it, what you're doing in the exact moment, just because I think a lot of that stuff is mindless and doesn't necessarily align with values or like how we would decide to spend our time, so, working on mindfulness and kind of flexing that muscle would help counteract that. So I would say that and just, like, yeah, the values piece, like thinking about, like, what do you want to do? How do you want to spend your time? How does social media fit into those goals? And what kind of limits do you need to set?

Owlia: Additionally, something we can all do is take time to learn media literacy, especially when out of the K through 12 education system. Having courses in place is one thing, but it comes down to personal initiative for both younger people and adults. Once again, Sharon McMahon.

McMahon: Media literacy is, it's a very big problem when it comes to adults because you have to want to learn media literacy. You can't shove it down somebody's throat. When it comes to the education of younger people. I think there's no question that it needs to be added into, you know, standardized into curriculum, school curriculum. So if the goal is to produce well-rounded students, that's, that will be part of it. The Internet's not going anywhere. Chances are good that you will need to take a media literacy course in college at some point, just like you take a freshman comp class. Some schools have already, colleges have already incorporated media literacy classes. So, I definitely think that's like, an emerging field of study.

Owlia: But in the end, the one crucial thing is power. Even though those in influence have the power, what is often forgotten is that we, the consumer, have just as much to demand and create change. As a result, we can choose how the rest of the story plays out. It inevitably comes down to even the simplest of choices. These include what you say and post online…

McMahon: You're still responsible for your conduct online. You're still responsible for the hate mail that you, you know, for the death threats that you send me. There should be better tools that the social media companies create for people like me to be able to deal with people like that. But nevertheless, it's still their responsibility for having sent that message in the first place.

Owlia: Take time to think about whether what you're posting or sharing is accurate or if you're adding anything to move the conversation forward. With all the information on the internet stuck in an echo chamber, who knows? We've probably even been sharing misinformation without realizing it.

McMahon: I firmly believe that you alone are responsible for what you post and repost on the internet. You do have to take personal responsibility for retweeting something or put it, you know, sending something to your Instagram stories. That is your responsibility alone. And if you do not have the time or ability to ensure that that information is accurate, then you should not repost it. That is your personal responsibility, not, you have to ask yourself, “Do I have the time and ability to fact check this right now?” Maybe the answer is no, and that's okay. But then your responsibility is to not repost that information. We're all in the process right now of creating our digital legacies. You know, you look at the papers of Abraham Lincoln or the papers of, you know, the letters between John and Abigail Adams, etc. these legacies that people have left us through their writings. We are creating our own digital legacies by with the DMs that we send, the content we post, the content we repost. And we have to ask ourselves– what kind of digital legacy do we want to create for our descendants, for our loved ones? And that's something that I think is very, you need to take personal responsibility for in ensuring that the legacy you are leaving people is one that you will be proud of.

Owlia: Another form of accountability is a simple pull of the lever against politicians who spread misinformation and take no accountability for it. Instead, endorse those willing to build bridges between people, not walls. If social media companies do not understand the consequences of the product, deny them their money and leave until they change their ways. There are many simple things you can do. However, this is the simplest– do you want to do the right thing for yourself and those around you? Do you take the easy road by staying divided and keep making the issue worse? Or do you take the hard path but, ultimately, the right one? By doing the work to self-improve, and trying to reach out, create understanding, and come together despite our disagreements? Let’s end this search where we began, that of the tale of Ceally Smith, who reluctantly got into QAnon through her boyfriend, then became ensnared through the death of Jeffrey Epstein, which led her down the rabbit hole and brought her mental state lower and lower, until she came to a fateful choice during the 2020 presidential election. 

Smith: Yeah, it was, that was actually the pivot point for me was, there was just all this talk of like, “You know, there's no way that this person's going to win and this person's going to prevail.” And, I just, kind of needed to sit back. And I told myself, like, “If, if this doesn't happen, if there is no shift, I need to leave, like, I, not, need to leave, but I need to shift my, where my focus is.” And I gave myself that time to say, “If there, if there isn't any change that really happens during this election, whoever comes in office, I am going to radically let go of everything that I believed to be true within the movement, within the community, the beliefs, or whatever.” And so, after the election, I decided to walk away completely. I got out of all the groups. Just let, the people I did connect with, let them know that I no longer wanted to talk about it and to please no longer send any videos or posts, that I was focusing on my mental health. Some of them were very shocked and, like, worried, but then some of them were like, “I understand. Like, this is a lot for one person to really internalize and try to, like, figure out all the pieces.” But, I also realized like, I was, I wasn't doing okay mentally. Just how I was showing up as myself and as someone in my family, I just, I had the awareness that it was, it was affecting my, my inner circle. And I wanted, I wanted that to change.

Owlia: And so, she left QAnon and broke up with her boyfriend. However, she knew that she had to do much more.

Smith: I took a break on the social media platforms and off the Internet. I turned off the news completely. And, I actually signed up to be a yoga teacher, and I did a yoga teacher training course that kept my focus on something that I felt was healthy for my mind and for my body. It helped me move the energy, so that's something that I focused on. But then, I also really focused on my family, the people closest to me that I'm very close to and very much love.

Owlia: It was not an easy path, and she knew it. 

Smith: For, for someone that has grown up, that has gone through some difficult things, I didn't see it as really being difficult. I really just saw it as, “This is what needs to happen to have a different outcome.” I mean, obviously, I had to end my relationship with that person that I was with and it was very difficult for both of us because we both very much cared for one another outside of our beliefs. And it was something that he wasn't able to leave or be able to, and it just wasn't going to align with where I wanted my life to go, so, I'd say the difficult things for me was I had to part with the relationship that I, at the time, felt close to. My family had to go through a transition of change again, which is not always easy for people. And I really had to just shift my awareness of where I was going. It was no longer going to be a part of, again, the beliefs and anything, anybody that leaves a religion or leaves, breaks up in a relationship, I think every human on this earth can say that change can be difficult, what, regardless of what it is.

Owlia: She had to walk through fire to get to the sun. And after all her hard work and journey, how does she feel today?

Smith: Really good. I mean, at the beginning, it was challenging. I had challenges, but I feel like I'm really grateful for the experience because it actually has helped me become who I am today, which is I have the ability to be more discerning and less naive about things. So I appreciate what it's taught me, and I also appreciate what it's done for me, which is I've gotten closer to myself. I know myself more now than I ever have. I am able to say what is for me and what isn't without really getting wrapped up in fear of missing out or if I just don't know enough, like, I just feel very confident in who I am today, which I'm really grateful for.

Owlia: Ceally is now a successful entrepreneur and a spiritual business consultant. Her experiences in QAnon helped mold her for better and worse into the person she is today, and she does not regret going through it. 

Smith: I don't have any hard feelings towards it. I don't have any hard feelings towards anybody that I've met through it or how I got connected to it. I, very much, am grateful for the things that I've learned and the things that I've experienced as a, as a human. Like I said, I'm really in a great place mentally. But again, I focused heavily on that when I, when I decided to shift my awareness, was to focus on me and focus on my family.

Owlia: Indeed, she believes QAnon helped her become a better businessperson and entrepreneur.

Smith: I would say yes. Interestingly enough, I would say yes in the sense that it showed me what to really pay attention to versus not. They're saying that where you put your energy or your focus is that's what will grow. So yeah, I would say that QAnon did make me a better entrepreneur in the sense that it showed me what not to put my focus on. It showed me what not to spend my time investing in.

Owlia: Through her struggles, she knew others who needed help to get where they needed to go. Once she gained her confidence and voice, she decided to use it and help others.

Smith: You know, I initially came into this, wanting to really help people focus on themselves, and to not make it about the movement or what they're fighting for, but really turn that energy and fight for themselves of, "What is this really doing for you? Is this really strengthening you and your relationships in the most important things to you in your life? Is it giving you a sense of, you know, freedom that you talk about so much?" And, I also met several people coming out of QAnon that, unfortunately, are no longer with us today because the mental state that they were in, they felt like they needed to take their own life. So, I personally felt that some people don't have the resources that I do. I realize that I am in a category that a lot of people are not in, which is, my businesses have been very successful. I have reached a platform in my businesses that a big, large community of people in business can't say that they've been able to reach. So, I have been able to fund my journey of getting back to a healthier mental state. And so, I really felt like it was something that I needed to not just do for myself to clear the air because I have had some backlash from people in my community of the beliefs that I have publicly have stated in the past and my family. And then, I did also realize from the people that I've connected with that have had more of a struggle of getting out of it mentally that I wanted to help those people. I wanted to help the people that said, "How do I do this?" And not necessarily give them the blueprint of exactly how I did it, but just encourage them that they have the ability to know that they can do it because I've done it. So sometimes, we can't be our own reason. Sometimes we have to be fighting for something else for us to choose it, and I realize that.

Owlia: Through it all, Ceally fought to be free. To live life on her terms and enjoy her time with friends and family.

Smith: Personally, I don't, I don't have any regrets to anything. I think where I'm at today is because of those experiences and those events. If I could go back, it would be to tell myself, “You're right where you're supposed to be. And I love you.”

Owlia: And now, some final thoughts. The process of going through all the information and breaking it down has been a story of informing, manipulation, and pain, but I found one thing through this process that was unexpected– faith. Faith in people, in a broken system that can be strengthened, in working together. Will we ever get to a time when podcasts like these are no longer necessary? Even if we put in the work, probably not any time soon. Can we get there? With a bit of luck and faith, I hope so. Come and dream with me.

Armon Owlia: Coming up on “This American Divide…”

Owlia: Social media, like many successful products, plays on both to keep and add customers.

Kara Fox: Social media is, like, designed to hold our attention and it's kind of in these quick blips.

Sharon McMahon: Critical thinking is a challenge in America right now.

Owlia: The most difficult thing we must do is the blame we must place upon ourselves…

Owlia: Have you seen the state of the nation lately? Do you like what you see?

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Michael Smerconish: Is social media harmful? That’s the question being raised and debated.

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Joe Fryer: We’ve got families all over the country who are dealing with this.

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Tom Costello: As anti-Semitic content has surged on Twitter after Elon Musk, who emphasized free speech, took full control. Use of the N-word also jumped 500 percent.

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Jo Ling Kent: After close reviews of the President’s recent tweets, it banned him, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

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President Joe Biden: It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy.

Alisyn Camerota: The alleged attacker posted conspiracy theories on Facebook.

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Brian Latimer: The social media business is evolving a lot these days.

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Alisyn Camerota: “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland announcing he’s taking a break from social media for the sake of his mental health.

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Jake Tapper: Cherished ideals of free speech are in the hands of erratic billionaires.

Owlia: It’s time to examine “This American Divide.”

 Owlia: I’ve found that, in life, it’s much easier to criticize the people around us rather than ourselves. From the days of the ancients, it seems as if this universal fact rings true– that as strong, smart, name your positive quality here as we are, we are not infallible. We are not perfect. And therefore, looking yourself in the eye and inviting self-criticism is not only difficult, but ultimately, brave. Throughout these last few episodes, we’ve talked about the blame of others, primarily, institutions. Very rarely have we taken the time to talk about our personal roles in the world of polarization. However, we do have a massive part to play. In this world of blame and pointing fingers, the most difficult thing we must do in terms of scale, complexity, and accountability is the blame we must place upon ourselves.

Ceally Smith: My name is Ceally Smith and I’m an entrepreneur. I would say that I was a believer of QAnon at one time. We're, we have free will, we’re humans. I don't believe blaming the social media company for creating a service or creating a platform for people to find community is their fault. I believe it's human nature for us and for what we've continued to create here on Earth. So putting the blame on one person, I mean, even QAnon did that a lot, is, for me and my belief system and how I believe, is really selfish and just not taking awareness that we each have a choice. I believe that each of us have a choice to show up how we want to, where we want to. And they are a company just like any company that we fund, whether it be using computers or whatever. Doesn't matter.

Owlia: Ceally has a point– we are the ones who keep the profit engine running and who enable the websites to maintain their practices. In effect, through profiteering, we, the people, allow the companies to continue without much motivation to stop. But, like many other facets of human nature, there are profound complexities. Not everyone who uses social media becomes radicalized or is affected by misinformation. There's no way of predicting who exactly is the most vulnerable, so either way, we have to be careful and operate under the assumption that we all are susceptible. With that fresh in our minds, it’s time to look at the one thing social media, the government, and people of influence instinctually target to keep us hooked– our minds, thoughts, and overall human nature. When looking into this, we must focus on two factors– how we learn and our overall brain chemistry. After all, social media, like many successful products, plays on both to keep and add customers. Let’s begin by discussing brain chemistry, probably the most insidious factor between the two. You’ve probably even heard the phrase “social media addiction” being used to describe it. In fact, it may not even be too far from the truth. 

Kara Fox: I'm Kara Fox. I'm a third year in the clinical psychology graduate program at UNC. I'm pursuing my Ph.D., um, and just got my Master's last fall.

Owlia: Fox's research specializes in the clinical impact of social media on adolescent development, a time when we are highly vulnerable to dependency issues.

Fox: It depends on who's using it and in what context because the project I've just been working on actually asked kids, like, “How do they feel like they're addicted to social media, and if so, how much?’” And a good amount do say so, on some level. So, it's not like kids are just blindly, you know, engaging with their phones all day long and not realizing that. They're pretty much aware that they're on their phones all the time. And it's not really their fault, because part of it is that they're literally hy– hard-wired at this point in their lives to pay the most attention to peers over everything else, and their phone just gives them constant access to that. So, like, probably addicted to some technology aspects, but definitely addicted, addicted to social interaction.

Owlia: Like any other addiction, social media has been intentionally engineered to create hits of serotonin and dopamine, the brain's "reward" chemical when you do something you like, and endorphins, which create physical dependence. You know those invisible vibrations you may get in your pockets, even when the phone isn't there? That's an example of the effects, known as "phantom vibration syndrome."

Fox: So, I think pretty much the research in adolescence in this area has just identified that some of those social inputs, like likes, notifications, comments are little hits of dopamine that are socially rewarding in the brain. Um, and what's kind of interesting about that is that stuff didn't exist before, meaning, like, when you were in an offline social interaction, like you didn't have these, like, quantifiable, like, “This many people in my life liked this about me.” Like, it was more, you processed things differently and now kids are given all these numbers and like, visible metrics of how other people are perceiving them. So, we know that that's rewarding, which makes sense that like kids are paying so much attention to it, like all of us are paying so much attention to it. But my thought is that it's rewarding in a different way.

Owlia: We’re always searching for this sensation and can find it in many different ways. In reality, what social media does is no different than Big Tobacco adding more nicotine to cigarettes. There's even a name for it in the tech industry– "brain hacking." 

Smith: We live in a world that consumes and humans have a resource of dopamine and serotonin and we're going to go towards those things because that's what we're hardwired to do. We're hardwired to get those hits of dopamine and serotonin.

Owlia: This brain hacking has already caused a visible effect on how the brain operates. Recent studies have concluded, for example, that increased screen time impacts the amount of white matter in the brains of preschool-aged children, which can negatively impact literacy skills. Additionally, frequent social media has been connected to heightened awareness of social feedback for adolescents. Interactions with others have also taken a serious shift due to hacking. 

Fox: So, I say that with the lens of, like, social media is just how that looks now, and it's probably going to look a little bit different because of all of the new elements of it. But, like, kids have always been super, like, hard-wired to value that above everything else, their social interactions, and it's interesting kind of introducing, like, all of the things that media puts in the middle of all of that, like advertising. And it's designed to be addictive. And there's, like, certain stressors and things that are, that are new for kids that didn't exist before. Like they feel pressured to talk to their friends all the time when that used to not be possible.

Owlia: The way we feel and process emotions, too, has radically changed. Studies have shown correlations between increased social media usage and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses.

Fox: Girls seem to be at heightened risk for some of the, like, stressors and kind of depressive symptom-related effects of social media. But I also was just working on a study that found that boys who feel, like, pressure within their friendships to respond constantly online are seeing more negative effects than girls are. So, girls and boys might respond to those social norms differently and social norms that are new because this media landscape is new.

Owlia: However, the scariest part of this hacking lies in two crucial ways we learn or operate. First, as we become more focused on quick self-gratification with the speed of notifications, our brains increasingly become unable to handle the everyday slowness of life, which, consequentially, makes it more difficult to think clearly. 

Fox: One thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately is sort of interaction with attention because social media is, like, designed to hold our attention and it's kind of in these quick blips. And so, I think our brains might be learning that that's normal. And then that doesn't always generalize well in other areas of our lives. 

Owlia: And finally, social media and the aforementioned brain hacking have been shown to negatively impact a crucial biological process that allows us to make sense of the world around us– sleep.

Fox: Um, a big one that is coming up is sleep. So kids are, like, social media use is messing with kids' sleep, it's messing with the quality, how much they're getting. And that is, that can cause or exacerbate a whole host of other problems.

Owlia: Sleep helps us regulate our emotions, think clearer, make more rational decisions, reduce the risk of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, boost our creativity, and improve our memory, allowing time to process information and consolidate it. As important as it is to recognize the impact of brain chemistry and social media on our critical thinking abilities, it is equally crucial to acknowledge the role of education and media literacy in cultivating a more informed and discerning society.

Sharon McMahon: I’m Sharon McMahon. I’m a Jefferson Award winner for Outstanding Public Service By A Private Citizen. I’ve been in a variety of publications, news outlets, you know, that sort of thing.

Owlia: McMahon, also known as "America's Government Teacher," has combated against misinformation through her podcast, "Sharon Says So." 

McMahon: Critical thinking is a challenge in America right now, especially for people who did not grow up in the digital age, where it is very easy to be fooled. And the human mind, of course, likes to be comfortable. It wants to believe what it already believes. It wants to keep believing what it already believes because change is uncomfortable.

Owlia: To think critically, to take all the facts from every possible angle and boil them down to the truth is difficult, to be sure. Indeed, education nearly 60 years ago was much different from the education we have now, particularly towards critical thinking. Science, technology, engineering, and math all require critical thinking to solve complex problems and find logical solutions, especially when there is a wide variety of information to wade through. However, infamous budget cuts to STEM and the arts in the wake of numerous education reform bills, including "No Child Left Behind" and the "Common Core," have decreased any type of focus on critical thinking and more on skills such as test-taking, which, in comparison to critical thinking, is not seen as much in the real world. There is a part of critical thinking that can be taught in schools that, to a degree, is part of the curriculum– media literacy. We all use such skills every day, without realizing it, when doing simple acts such as researching, trying to determine the efficacy and accuracy of a source, and figuring out how advertisers sell us products. However, media literacy education throughout much of the country does not take into account new tools such as social media, despite numerous studies, indicating that such skills are fundamental to learn.

McMahon: Today's adults have surprisingly low media literacy levels, and I do think we're seeing changes at the, you know, elementary and high school level where people are incorporating media literacy lessons into their curriculum. But, you know, that is part of what I do on social media is try to help bring awareness to media literacy. People currently believe that a bias is the equivalent of a lie. That if you are biased towards a certain person or away from another person, that all you are saying are lies. They believe “bias” and “lie” are synonyms. I've spent literal years debunking the idea that “bias” and “lie” are, mean the same thing, that you can be truthful and biased. You can be both of those things.

Owlia: Such critical thinking, in this era, can also be challenging because of the echo chamber culture we live in. This is, in no small part, due to the extreme amounts of sorting that social media and political discourse encourage. 

McMahon: What social media algorithms do is they continue to feed you the information that feels good to you. They, and that means that we don't have the same opportunity to critically examine our viewpoints because doing so feels bad.

Owlia: When added to the impacts of social media on the brain, it can open the door to manipulation, hopelessness, and some level of desperation to seize a level of control. Like other addictive substances, it can leave us on the metaphorical hamster wheel, going around and around with only two options to stop it– either change the behavior or be consumed by darkness. Once again, QAnon survivor and entrepreneur Ceally Smith. 

Smith: Yeah, I would say that, prior, I had some mental stability. I wouldn't say I was fully mentally stable beforehand. Further getting into QAnon and digging deeper and spending time researching and taking that time away from my business, most importantly, my family, and above all, my, my own health, I started mentally breaking under the pressures of exhaustion, whether it be through research or talking to people, conversing with my partner at the time. It became very clear that I didn't have control over what was going on and, I felt like I was losing myself, losing the ability to keep my children safe, losing the ability to really have a voice as a voter. And I felt very small, so, getting deeper into the beliefs, getting deeper into the conversations with people, it just became very clear to me that this is, this is not stable for me. And the people in my life at the time that I was conversing with, it was showing signs that it was not stable for them either.

Owlia: Social media has a lot of darkness, and in more ways than one, these platforms have revealed the tremendous power and influence they have on our lives. We have been manipulated psychologically and emotionally, with very little done to stop it. In fact, most of the intervention that’s been done has contributed to such manipulation. Deficiencies in accountability, the will to change, education, and our personal weaknesses have made this a nightmare. But that isn't to say there isn't a way out. It's always darkest before the dawn, they say. Well, are you ready to see the sunrise?

Armon Owlia: Coming up on “This American Divide…”

Owlia: The dominoes had to fall in precisely the right order and time to create the world we live in.

Sharon McMahon: It treats these social media companies as, you know, grants them broad immunity.

Frances Haugen: Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside of Facebook.

Elon Musk: I don’t need to listen to what they say.

Owlia: There seems to be a "Wizard of Oz"-level of mysticism…

Owlia: Do you like what you see?

(static effect)

Michael Smerconish: Is social media harmful? That’s the question being raised and debated.

(static effect)

Joe Fryer: We’ve got families all over the country who are dealing with this.

(static effect)

Tom Costello: As anti-Semitic content has surged on Twitter after Elon Musk, who emphasized free speech, took full control. Use of the N-word also jumped 500 percent.

(static effect)

Jo Ling Kent: After close reviews of the President’s recent tweets, it banned him, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

(static effect)

President Joe Biden: It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy.

Alisyn Camerota: The alleged attacker posted conspiracy theories on Facebook.

(static effect)

Brian Latimer: The social media business is evolving a lot these days.

(static effect)

Alisyn Camerota: “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland announcing he’s taking a break from social media for the sake of his mental health.

(static effect)

Jake Tapper: Cherished ideals of free speech are in the hands of erratic billionaires.

Owlia: It’s time to examine “This American Divide.”

Owlia: Complex problems always have complex backstories and explanations, political polarization in America is no exception. While it’s easy to blame just one group or factor for any issue we face, the truth is that such an approach doesn’t get us anywhere in a time of complexity. The dominoes had to fall in precisely the right order and time to create the world we live in. We've gone over those actions, including the intentional division of America to put Richard Nixon in the White House, the weaponization or demonization of the press, depending on where you lie on the political spectrum, the development of social media and, inevitably, the opportunistic ways it would be used by politicians. However, a few more dominoes we have not discussed needed to fall. Funnily enough, these dominoes were not meant for hate or intentional division. These dominoes were laws created by people who had their hearts and intentions in the right place. They were created to ensure the growth and freedom of the early internet. In the three-way Venn diagram of failure between social media companies, the government, and the overall human tendency to be reactionary, lies a set of laws called the Communications Decency Act of 1996, with one in particular standing the test of relevancy. 

Sharon McMahon: I’m Sharon McMahon. I’m a Jefferson Award winner for Outstanding Public Service By A Private Citizen. I’ve been in a variety of publications, news outlets, you know, that sort of thing.

Owlia: McMahon, also known as "America's Government Teacher," has combated against misinformation through her podcast, "Sharon Says So."

Owlia (in conversation with McMahon): What exactly prevents the government from taking any action in terms of creating and/or enforcing social media regulation?

McMahon: Well, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is part of it.”

Owlia: Section 230 is often regarded as the law that allowed the internet to develop into what we know today. But why is it so important? Let's hear from the Congressional testimony of one of its co-authors, current Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Ron Wyden: Section 230 was absolutely necessary to bring our legal system into the 21st century. It has been the legal foundation for the growth of the Internet, particularly in areas like education, jobs, and a platform for free speech around the world. 

Owlia: Wyden, alongside former Republican Representative Chris Cox of California, understood that the internet, at least in 1996, was novel and needed further exploration. Laws needed to be written to give internet companies tremendous freedom to grow and evolve, as Wyden further explained.

Wyden: Now, when I wrote Section 230 more than 20 years ago, it was in recognition of the fact that the Internet was just going to change everything, the way we interact with each other, the way we do business. It would change virtually every corner of our lives and our society. And we understood that no amount of legislation and political bloviating could stop the change, but we could influence how it came about. 

Owlia: The law itself is very long, and I will not subject you to all of it. However, one clause must be addressed because it makes Section 230 crucial to understanding any difficulty in finding a solution. Clause C, also known as the "Good Samaritan" clause, reads, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action, voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively, violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical needs to restrict access to materials described in paragraph (1).” So, what exactly does that mean?

McMahon: It treats these social media companies as, you know, grants them broad immunity from what's being posted on their platforms.

Owlia: In other words, social media companies cannot legally be held liable for content posted on their platforms. Before you start yelling, you need to understand that, in 1996, such a clause was necessary because so much was unknown about the internet and its power. Hell, in 1996, who could conceive of a social networking site? Who could have predicted that Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram would not only exist but also become a conduit to original content and information in the ways that television, radio, and newspapers are now? In 2023, however, it's not only obvious, but there’s a clear difference: television, radio, and newspapers are all held to such a level of accountability that if even one piece of misinformation hit their airwaves, their credibility and ability to operate would be severely damaged, if not destroyed. With such autonomy, social media companies can do whatever they want, however they see fit regarding content. They do, in fact, have the power to make changes as they see fit. This is Frances Haugen, who not only leaked material about Facebook's operation to the Wall Street Journal but also testified before Congress on the ramifications of said leak.

Frances Haugen: Only Facebook knows how it personalizes your feed for you…Facebook hides behind walls that keeps researchers and regulators from understanding the true dynamics of their system.

Owlia: We've previously established that Facebook and other social media organizations have control of every aspect of the platform, notably the algorithm that keeps people plugged in and contributes to the spread of misinformation.

Owlia (in contact with McMahon): In your professional opinion, do you feel social media companies should hold some level of responsibility for the effects their product has on younger people?

McMahon: Yes, in that they are the creators and originators of the algorithms that can, have been shown to negatively impact people. That is, that's their own creation. They can change at any time they want to. They can take, they have the capacity to take steps to mitigate against some of the negative effects of social media. They have the ability to police their platforms if they choose to.

Owlia: As a result, social media companies could actively choose to make changes that would, overall, be highly positive. However, there seems to be a "Wizard of Oz"-level of mysticism that the organizations put up for the public and government. This mysticism and, to a lesser degree, leverage that the companies have prevent the government from taking action.

Haugen: We are given no other option than to take their marketing messages on blind faith. Not only does the company hide most of its own data, my disclosure has proved that when Facebook is directly asked questions as important as, “How do you impact the health and safety of our children?,” they choose to mislead and misdirect. Facebook has not earned our blind faith.

Owlia: However, it's not, surprisingly, solely a matter of whether or not Congress wants to do anything about the technology companies.

McMahon: Most members of Congress that I am aware of do not hold the social media companies in high regard. In fact, you know, the people who are on the left dislike social media companies for different reasons than people on the right. But nevertheless, they both have contempt for the social media companies. You know, they have a common enemy. They dislike that enemy for different reasons.

Owlia: So, if social media is a common Congressional enemy, why exactly hasn't there been any action? The answer is simple, almost laughingly simple.

McMahon: The other part of it has to do with lack of congressional understanding about how the Internet actually works. A lot of people in Congress are not avid Internet users in the way that people, younger people are. And this is not like, it, meant to be ageist or anything of that nature, they're certainly capable of understanding if they want to, but it is a tremendously complex thing to begin to wrap your mind around if you are not an avid Internet user that some younger people are. You know, the average ages in Congress are quite a bit older than average ages around the rest of the country. So, that's part of it. I mean, even the Supreme Court last week, Justice Elena Kagan said…

Elena Kagan: We're not, like, you know, the nine biggest experts on the Internet.

McMahon: Like, even she had the self-awareness to be able to say, like, ‘We're not who needs to be deciding this.’ And these are some of the brightest minds in America, right? Chosen through a very careful vetting process and wildly highly educated and even they're like, you know? Elena Kagan used to be the Solicitor General of the United States. She used to be the, the, the lawyer for the United States of America.

Owlia: At almost every level, the government doesn't truly understand how the internet works or even the legality. So, when social media companies promise regulation or say they can do it without government intervention, it's naturally easy to take them at their word if the government doesn't know what to do. Once again, Frances Haugen.

Haugen: During my time at Facebook, I came to realize a devastating truth: almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside of Facebook.

Owlia: And for those who think this is isolated to Facebook, the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk is a prime example of what happens when trying to regulate a platform internally goes terribly wrong. Before Musk's acquisition in October 2022, Twitter tried to enforce certain levels of regulation regarding misinformation and hate speech, most notably providing brief fact-checks on COVID-19 tweets, including those about vaccines and masks that contained misinformation. After the events of January 6, Twitter took the extraordinary step of banning Donald Trump from the platform, along with others who helped encourage the insurrection and violated Twitter’s own rules about hate speech. In a tweet shortly after buying the platform for $44 billion, Musk stated he had purchased Twitter to prevent it from being…

Tom Costello: “A free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”

Owlia: Musk instituted major changes quickly, such as announcing a "Content Moderation Council" with diverse viewpoints, reinstating figures such as Kanye West and Donald Trump to the platform, despite being banned for defaming language, hate speech, and, in the case of Trump, planting misinformation to aid and abet a riot. Musk also announced the Twitter Blue paid subscription for $8 monthly, gifting the iconic blue checkmark previously given after an intense screening process to a small few, including public figures and journalists. However, the results of these changes brought a litany of controversies that only made the misinformation crisis worse. As a result of bringing back users such as West and Trump, hate speech on the platform skyrocketed.

Errol Barnett: Hate speech is surging on Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover, despite his claims last month they’d fallen on the platform. According to findings from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League, posts which include racial slurs against black people have trebled, slurs against gay people are up 60%, while there’s been a 61% spike in antisemitic tweets referencing “Jews” or “Judaism.”

Owlia: Because anybody could buy a blue checkmark on Twitter, creating misinformation with catastrophic results became easy.

Savannah Guthrie: Wall Street is watching pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly today. Its stock plummeted last week after someone impersonated the company on Twitter. Said it would make insulin free. Twitter had changed its policy allowing anyone to acquire a blue-verified checkmark simply by paying an $8 fee.

Owlia: Musk's tendencies, too, have encouraged high amounts of misinformation on the platform. Remember that "Content Moderation Council" he announced? Not only has such a council not been formed at the time of writing, but listen to what Musk himself had to say about it.

Elon Musk: I just want to be clear about, we are going to do a Content Council, but it’s an advisory council. It’s not a…at the end of the day, it will be me deciding and any pretense to the contrary is simply not true. Because, obviously, I could choose who’s on it, the Content Council, and, I don’t need to listen to what they say.

Owlia: On top of that, in December 2022, Musk dissolved the crucial Trust & Safety Council that has been offering advice on countering misinformation and has repeatedly posted misinformation on topics such as the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He has also repeatedly stated that the algorithms that run social media have a left-wing bias. However, numerous studies have shown that, in reality, the exact opposite is true. So, what exactly is the point of all of this? The days of social media claiming they can self-regulate are over. Time and time again, social media companies have proven that self-regulation not only doesn't work, but the lack of transparency means they can do whatever they want behind closed doors. Once again, Frances Haugen, in her Congressional testimony.

Haugen: Congress can change the rules that Facebook plays by and stop the many harms it is now causing.

Owlia: It's not a matter of "if" but rather "how" and "when." Social media companies need to be held responsible and accountable for their actions, and if not by the government, then by who else? Once again, Sharon McMahon. 

McMahon: You know, I don't know anyone who is educated on this topic who is like, “Yeah, they're doing enough.” And, you know, one of the things that they, this is one of the issues before the Supreme Court right now is how responsible are they for their algorithms? How, you know, like to what extent should they be held responsible for the algorithms that push harmful content to people, whether they're a minor or an adult? YouTube is like finding a needle in a haystack, right? There are billions of videos on YouTube and they want to keep you on the platform because that's how they make money off of you. And so consequently, they're going to push content to you that it thinks you will enjoy based on what you or your travels around the Internet, not just your use on the site, your travels around the Internet as a whole. That's not my responsibility as a user. I can't control any of that. That's their responsibility to, to responsibly use algorithms and to responsibly profit off of their users. It's not your responsibility to profit off of their users. So, no, I don't think they are being held accountable to the extent that they should be. I do think they're, personally that they are responsible for their algorithms. They made them. Nobody else has control over them but them. And in some ways, they have failed to anticipate the repercussions, the huge repercussions that their algorithms have had in the real world.

Owlia: Misinformation will continue to go in circles without the proper knowledge and transparency. However, we've seen that when an issue is important enough for Congress, they learn as much as they can to handle it. We are at a tipping point; such an initiative must be found quickly. Regulation and education. These are two of the tools necessary to tackle this issue. We've talked about one already. But the other? Well, let's open the textbooks.

The birth of social media was fun and innocent, but now we're living in a world of echo chambers, misinformation, and political division. So, what happened? In this episode, host Armon Owlia takes us on a journey to explore how social media companies use algorithms to tailor our experiences, leading to increased engagement and revenue. But at what cost? Join the conversation with guest Sharon McMahon, as they uncover the dark side of social media and how it's impacting our society.

Episode Editor: Shereen Marisol Meraji

Soundtrack Listing For This Episode:
“TAD Recap” by Armon Owlia
"''DRILL'' BEAT 2021” by musicandprod 
“Walking Along” by Kevin MacLeod
“Remorse” by Mamoune Taleb
“I Knew A Guy” by Kevin MacLeod
“Brick and Mortar” by Nocturnal Spirits
“The Secret Within” by Darren Curtis
“Bleak Horizon” by Darren Curtis

Armon Owlia: Coming up on “This American Divide…”

Owlia: “The first thing you need to know about me– I don’t like extremes.”

Todd Washburn: "What we call ‘negative partisanship’ has been rising significantly."

Paul Pierson: “There was a concerted effort to keep race off the agenda. Sometimes, Republicans, to make trouble, would see if they could get the issue on the agenda.”

Owlia: “So how did we get here? Come with me on a little journey.”

John Ehrlichman (recreation): “You wanna know what this is really all about?”

Owlia: Do you like what you see?

(static effect)

Michael Smerconish: Is social media harmful? That’s the question being raised and debated.

(static effect)

Joe Fryer: We’ve got families all over the country who are dealing with this.

(static effect)

Tom Costello: As anti-Semitic content has surged on Twitter after Elon Musk, who emphasized free speech, took full control. Use of the N-word also jumped 500 percent.

(static effect)

Jo Ling Kent: After close reviews of the President’s recent tweets, it banned him, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

(static effect)

President Joe Biden: It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy.

Alisyn Camerota: The alleged attacker posted conspiracy theories on Facebook.

(static effect)

Brian Latimer: The social media business is evolving a lot these days.

(static effect)

Alisyn Camerota: “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland announcing he’s taking a break from social media for the sake of his mental health.

(static effect)

Jake Tapper: Cherished ideals of free speech are in the hands of erratic billionaires.

Owlia: It’s time to examine “This American Divide.”

Owlia: I find most people will ask regarding politics, “What are you? A Democrat or Republican?” It makes American politics feel like a game between two teams to see who can gain the most power and influence to push their agendas. Except it isn't a game. Lives are on the line. And yet, the question's asked as casually as "Mets or Yankees?" I've been asked that question a lot. Even after years of soul-searching, I still don't know. How can I even approach such a question or a topic without telling you a bit about myself? So, I want to put my cards out on the table for you, so you can understand where I’m coming from. The first thing you need to know about me - I don’t like extremes. I was raised to practice moderation from an early age. I grew up in a center-right township about eight miles south of Pittsburgh, the son of an immigrant single mother who’s a scientist-by-training and now CEO. She taught me to think critically, keep an open mind, and look at the full picture. If you work hard, you’ll see results – especially in the United States of America. I grew up on the threshold of the upper middle class and the one percent – because of my mother’s success. A key point in many stump speeches from far-left politicians was the lumping of the top one percent of wealth earners in America, including, but not limited to, not paying their fair share of taxes or being an evil, secretive, undesirable group of society that needed to be destroyed. Consequently, raising taxes on all members of the one percent became a popular rallying cry. Now, it's true. There are people in the top one percent who avoid paying their fair share of taxes. However, I know there are members of that top one percent, such as my mother, who immigrated to the United States and worked ridiculously hard for everything she has, and then was punished and vilified for her hard work. On top of that, many of those one percent actively donate their time and money to help their fellow citizens. Warren Buffett has pledged to donate 99 percent of his estimated $94 billion wealth to charity after his death, and has been recognized as the biggest philanthropist in history. Stereotyping and vilifying the wealthy ignores the real issue, which is the need for more effective enforcement of existing tax laws. The nomination by the Republicans of Donald Trump in 2016 and the Party’s constant backing despite his infamous behavior, such as mocking a disabled reporter, misogynistic comments on "Access Hollywood," and his anti-immigration stances towards those of Middle Eastern descent, amongst many others, had, in my mind, solidified my not being Republican. I was excited to see him lose and fade into obscurity. Only that didn't happen. The 2016 near-nomination of Bernie Sanders, perceived by 70 percent of Democrats as liberal, showed many disgruntled Democrats sick of the moderate establishment, much like their counterparts on the right. They felt the best way to fight the fire of Trump was with some fire of their own, otherwise known as the painkiller that is populism. The lack of a succession plan led to a shift within the Democratic Party. I should have seen it coming, but I was so blinded I had forgotten Newton's Third Law, "For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction." And so, in the 2018 midterms, many young progressive Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won their districts and began to change the course of the Party through policies such as a 70 percent marginal tax plan on individuals who earn over $10 million. AOC, who had volunteered with Sanders in 2016, ran for Representative of New York's 14th district in 2018. She campaigned as a more progressive candidate than her opponent and as the underdog being held down by the establishment, as shown by her lack of endorsements from New York politicians like Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. While I agree with her on certain issues, I found her rhetoric alienating to those who could help find a solution. Amongst my fellow Democratic friends, I encountered voices that were, overall, very progressive, and seemingly uncompromisable. To them, I didn't "sound like a Democrat" because instead of condemning Republicans, I believed in trying to talk and understand the differences, coming to an agreement, even if we agreed to disagree. Sanders' early lead in the 2020 election, however, solidified my fate as a Democrat. Shortly after moving to California in March 2020, I registered as an Independent. I still get flak for it, even from those closest to me at the time. Why don't I choose a side? Don't I understand how problematic the "other side" is? Why would I choose not to be associated with anybody? Aren't I part of the problem? I chose "no side" for my health and sanity. To choose one would be to ignore the evils of the other, and in politics, there's plenty of evil. Independent is my team at a time when such a team is considered unacceptable. It has allowed me to maintain a dialogue with people of various political platforms, a chance to understand multiple perspectives and debate them at will while allowing me to express my complexities without the limiting box of a Party. I have found that I am not alone in my sentiments of burnout with both parties. A Pew study back in August shows that the percentage of Americans who, like me, hold unfavorable views of both parties is at 27 percent, the highest since the first studies in 1994. It's not as if moderates don't exist anymore. They still do, there are just so many less of them, and they operate as either Republicans or Democrats, rather than a third party.

Pierson: I’m Paul Pierson and I teach political science at the University of California, Berkeley. There are far, far fewer moderate members of the House or the Senate. Politicians have good reason to, in most districts, to worry more about the primary than to worry about the general election.

Owlia: Picking one side versus another reinforces arguably the most enduring part of the American fabric: the two-party system.

Washburn: My name is Todd Washburn. I teach a course called "The Polarization of American Politics" that I've taught since the fall of 2019.

Owlia: Washburn teaches the course at the Harvard Extension School.

Washburn: What we call “negative partisanship” has been rising significantly. I don't know if you're familiar with this term, but it's basically, in simplest terms, just hostility to the other party. So both Democrats and Republicans give much lower ratings to the opposing party than they did 40 or 50 years ago. Like, “I really don't like those people."

Owlia: In the last episode, I mentioned that we must look back to look forward. To do so, we must ask ourselves a critical question: "How are stereotypes created?" When the words "Democrat" or "Republican" are spoken, different images come to mind. According to data from the Pew Research Center, a Democrat would most likely be a nonwhite, younger, nonreligious person, often associated more with causes regarding civil rights, diversity, gun control, health care, abortion rights, voting policies, the Supreme Court, climate change, and education.

Washburn: The majority of nonwhite voters in the United, in the country, are today Democrats. It's a little tricky then to say the majority. So, if you look for instance at, it's going back a few years now, but Barack Obama's 2012 election, about 45% of the people who voted for Obama were nonwhite.

Owlia: A Republican, on the other hand, is more likely to be, again, statistically, a white, older, predominately male, religious person, most likely, a Christian. They would be more associated with causes such as the state of the economy, crime, immigration, the right to life, and the power and influence of the federal government.

Washburn: Almost all white Americans, at least, who are religiously observant, have moved into the Republican Party.

Owlia: These perceptions and the statistics that support them are no accident. The parties did not start this way. Various party leaders and members of influence manipulated them to ensure their party reached a desirable level of power. This is because of arguably the most successful, long-term PR campaign in history that has defined American politics and life as we know it. Such a history is essential to understand if you want to answer why America is so polarized.

Washburn: The American public has sorted itself into the “proper” political parties. So, most people who identify as liberals today, almost all, consider themselves Democrats. Most people who identify as conservatives consider themselves Republicans. And again, on top of that, they are much more likely to actually be liberals or conservatives than they were 50 years ago.

Owlia: So how did we get here? Come with me on a little journey.

(audio transition) 

Owlia: Welcome to 1950s America. The Democrats and Republicans co-exist with highly similar ideologies, as the country remains united in the aftermath of the Great Depression, New Deal, and Second World War. There are some factors in both parties you may recognize from now that are still there, but one important thing is missing– division.

Washburn: It was very common in the middle of the 20th century when you interviewed Americans about their policy opinions to find that individual Americans would have a range of opinions. They'd be conservative on this issue and liberal on this issue. And it was very hard to find any coherent ideological pattern, patterns to their thinking.

Owlia: However, a concern is beginning to rise– political parties in the United States are not as effective as they possibly could be. The identities, demographics, ideals, and principles of the Democrats and Republicans are too alike to be distinguished. To that purpose, The American Political Science Association publishes a study. The study read, in part…

V.O.: "Popular government in a nation of more than 150 million people requires political parties which provide the electorate with a proper range of choice between alternatives of action. In order to keep the parties apart, one must consider the relations between each and public policy."

Owlia: In other words, the parties were too similar. If American democracy is to survive, the political parties must establish two distinct identities.

Pierson: In the 1940s and 1950s, there was a lot of overlap between the political parties. There were conservatives and liberals in both parties, and there was quite a bit of variation across the country in what it meant to be a Republican or what it meant to be a Democrat. So, this political science commission of of, you know, highly esteemed political scientists argued that this was a problem, that it would be better, both for voters and for governance, if it was easier to tell the parties apart, if voters could see that there was a clear difference between the two parties. And so, they didn't use the language of polarization, but essentially, what they were advocating for was for a more polarized system, in which the parties would be more distinctive from each other, more internally coherent, and that the hope was that that would give voters a better sense of what was going on in the political system, and it also meant that the parties, when they did win elections, they'd be able to govern because they'd have a coherent program that was distinctive from what the other party was offering. 

Owlia: Little did people realize that a particular Supreme Court case would turn the 1950 report from an ill-received prophecy to an inevitability. With "Brown v. Board of Education" in 1953 catalyzing the Civil Rights Movement, the party makeup began to change, starting with the Southern Democrats. You see, the political map that you know doesn’t exist yet. The South, now seen as a Republican stronghold, is, in this period, heavily Democratic.

Pierson: If you go back to the, to the 1950s, that's actually sort of the, the tail end of the period before American political parties started changing. And at that point, the map that we're familiar with now, the red state versus blue state map, would almost be completely reversed because the South, which is really I think the most distinctive political region in the country, was solidly Democratic in the 1950s.

Owlia: In the 1930s and 1940s, economic policies such as The New Deal and major events such as World War II helped unify the Democrats and America under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. If there was anything that the anti-integrationist Solid South was not so keen on, it was equal rights for African Americans, and the Democrats of the time were not focusing on such legislation to ensure party unity, including, most notably, President Roosevelt.

Pierson: Yeah, I think FDR and other Democrats, and you could say this really carried through until, maybe 1960, Democrats made the calculation, national Democrats made the calculation that to hold their very strange political coalition together, which included a lot of northern liberals, but also included the forces of white supremacy in the South, that they had to keep race off the political agenda. And there was a concerted effort to keep race off the agenda. Sometimes, Republicans, to make trouble, would see if they could get the issue on the agenda. But certainly throughout the New Deal and even in the years after the New Deal, the Democrats tried to hold their coalition together by keeping, keeping issues of civil rights off the table.

Owlia: There had already been some signs of dissent within the Democratic Party. In 1948, Southern Democrats left to create the States' Rights Party, better known as the Dixiecrats. This third party would cause the Democrats to lose four out of the fourteen Solid South states: Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama. However, they would still win the election, with the leaders of the States' Rights Party returning to the Democrats. These events, however, would end up becoming pivotal and sparked a chain of events that have led us to now. Time to go a little bit forward in time…fasten your seatbelts. 

(audio transition)

Owlia: Welcome to 1964, and those seeds planted in the 1950s are now growing into redwoods beginning to crack America's foundations. This is the year of the Civil Rights Act; the Vietnam War protest movement is starting to take shape. This is also the year President Lyndon B. Johnson defeats Republican challenger Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona in a landslide, marking the seventh victory by the Democrats in the last nine presidential elections. With the Democrats firmly in the driver's seat, Republicans realized they would have to change to seize control. But how? Once again, the key would come down to the Solid South, where Goldwater won the vast majority of his states. Goldwater was seen as the first true hardline conservative through his philosophy of anti-integrationist views. Remember, the Solid South was heavily opposed then, and still now, to integration or any addressing of Civil Rights.

Pierson: The Civil Rights Movement, I think quite consciously put pressure on the Democrats not to bury the issue of civil rights. They made it more and more difficult simply by, by attracting attention to their cause. And I think the arrival of television was important in this respect as well, that it was possible to, to broadcast what was happening in the Jim Crow South and the, the way in which the Civil Rights Movement was and peaceful demonstrators were being, were being suppressed. All of that created more pressure on the Democratic Party, essentially, to pick a side, to decide whether they were going to support the Civil Rights Movement or not. And ultimately, they do make a break in that direction. This is what happens in the early 1960s and then, you know, famously leading to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And LBJ is, you know, quite, quite visible embrace of the Civil Rights Movement, both in legislation and rhetorically. And that, so that, I think, was a in-turn a catalyst to the parties becoming more distinctive. It's clear to voters that there is a racially more liberal party and a racially more conservative party. It makes it easier for voters and for, for politicians to figure out which party they should be in.

Owlia: With President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Democrats became the party of civil rights and diversity, cementing the black vote and consequentially relinquishing up the Solid South, a consistent Democratic stronghold for nearly 40 years.

Pierson: The black vote had already been shifting somewhat in the direction of the Democrat, of the Democratic Party, But certainly, the Civil Rights Movement and LBJ's actions in the 1960s, you know, greatly reinforced that. At the same time, that it led to this counter movement of white Southerners from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party.

Owlia: The Republicans now had an in, so how could they take advantage? Enter Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon (archival): Well, I'm not a crook.

Owlia: Yes, THAT Richard Nixon. Nixon was no stranger to the Republican Party. He had been Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower, the only Republican to become President in the 36-year-long period, before losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and retiring from politics a few years later. However, he would make a seemingly miraculous return with a winning strategy in 1968: go hard or go home.

Pierson: And so Republicans, eager to break out of that minority status, recognized that there was a pool of voters, especially in the South, though it also included racial conservatives and conservatives more generally in the North, who this new Republican Party hoped to appeal to, and the Southern Strategy basically involved leaning into that, emphasizing the kinds of issues often coded in a way so that the racial valence of them was not too visible.

Owlia: With his campaign's help and his party's endorsement, Nixon executed the aforementioned "Southern Strategy." But how exactly was it carried out? This is an AI voice recreation of John Ehrlichman, the former White House Counsel and Domestic Affairs Advisor under President Nixon, who stated the following to “Harper’s Magazine” writer Dan Baum in 1994.

Ehrlichman (recreation): You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

Owlia: Through the Solid South, the Republicans had found their niche, their target to be back on top. And, in fact, they have used that same target ever since. Plus, the adage is true– fear sells, especially ones built on a false or manipulated narrative.

Pierson: Parties decide what kinds of issues that they want to emphasize, how to frame those issues, and, and, you know, Richard Nixon was, was a master at that.

Owlia: Such specific demographic targeting would eventually lead to heavy sorting without much exposure, allowing such views of the opposition to grow and fester. That simple strategy not only put Nixon into the White House but created the image of both parties into what we know today. Once again, Todd Washburn from Harvard University. 

Washburn: And so, that is probably, I would argue, the most significant issue–that Ameri– Democrats and Republicans are no longer living in the same neighborhoods, driving the same kinds of cars, working in the same industries, even watching the same television shows, shopping at the same grocery stores; it's not so much that Democrats and Republicans or Liberals and Conservatives or Americans on different sides of our political divide disagree on politics, although they do. It's that they, they, we have nothing in common outside of politics. And it's very easy to dehumanize people with whom you have nothing in common, especially if you already disagree with them on issues that matter to you.

Owlia: To win an election, people decided the best way to gain power was to tear people apart, a theme now common and recurring throughout American history. It achieves, for the select few, the ultimate goal of power and influence so that the process can repeat and grow. There is now a game of "us versus them," but there are no winners here. In fact, the only winning move may be to not play. Mark Twain is often reputed to have said, "History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme." Indeed, history has shown that polarization in America is new, but many factors that led to such division and separation are repeated. The polarization we see today is just the first sprouts of a tree planted centuries prior, and if you know anything about removing plants, especially ones that have grown for centuries, it's never that easy to clear the roots. Now imagine if, in 1968, Richard Nixon and his campaign had the tool of social media at their fingertips. How lethal would that have been? Well, it's not difficult to imagine…because people on both sides of the aisle continue to utilize this strategy more accurately and clinically than ever before. The Southern Strategy on the grandest scale, with the voices of the center being demonized, discredited, and silenced. We know the tricks. But what about the tools used? Well, I guess it's time to dive into the toolbox…you follow me?

Armon Owlia: Coming up on “This American Divide…” 

President Donald Trump: “Let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue…” 

Owlia: “Things are bad. Really bad. And I want to know why.” 

Todd Washburn: “We all live in our own information bubbles…” 

Ceally Smith: "The shift for me was when Epstein was arrested for the allegations that he was being arrested for."  

Owlia: “Let’s put the house together again.” 

Owlia: Do you like what you see? 

(static effect) 

Michael Smerconish: Is social media harmful? That’s the question being raised and debated. 

(static effect) 

Joe Fryer: We’ve got families all over the country who are dealing with this. 

(static effect) 

Tom Costello: As anti-Semitic content has surged on Twitter after Elon Musk, who emphasized free speech, took full control. Use of the N-word also jumped 500 percent. 

(static effect) 

Jo Ling Kent: After close reviews of the President’s recent tweets, it banned him, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” 

(static effect) 

President Joe Biden: It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy.

Alisyn Camerota: The alleged attacker posted conspiracy theories on Facebook. 

(static effect) 

Brian Latimer: The social media business is evolving a lot these days. 

(static effect) 

Alisyn Camerota: “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland announcing he’s taking a break from social media for the sake of his mental health. 

(static effect) 

Jake Tapper: Cherished ideals of free speech are in the hands of erratic billionaires. 

Owlia: It’s time to examine “This American Divide.” 

Owlia: It was just another Wednesday morning in January, about 9 o'clock. I was doing my usual morning routine, sitting in the kitchen of my San Francisco home, having an early hot chocolate. Looking through the news cycle and reviewing social media feeds had provided nothing but disappointment. Another Donald Trump tweet. Another conspiracy theory. Another casualty of misinformation. It’s been years of this. First, it was "Build The Wall," then it was "Drain The Swamp," next, "Fake News," "Fine People On Both Sides," then "COVID Is Not A Big Deal." All were manufactured by Trump or those in his camp, then endorsed through inaction by his party's leadership.

Marty McFly: Grays. Sports. Almanac. 

Owlia: I’m reminded of "Back To The Future II" where Biff stole the almanac from Marty in 2015 and gave it to himself in 1955. Writer Bob Gale claimed that he and Robert Zemeckis modeled it after what they thought America would’ve looked like if Trump became President. A chaos-ridden, dystopic, casual-disregarding-of-the-facts America, with bullets flying everywhere and constantly putting your head on a swivel whilst one man’s name was constantly in lights whether you liked it or not. The world may have laughed in 1989, saying, "This is just fiction." We aren’t laughing now. But back to the kitchen. On this January morning, the buzz phrases de-jour were "The election was stolen/rigged" and "Stop The Steal," despite every piece of evidence, every judge, and every election official pointing to the contrary. Trump and his party's most influential representatives refused to admit defeat against then-President-elect Joe Biden. A perfect backdrop for the certification of said election inside the walls of the U.S. Capitol.

Amy Klobuchar: Mr. President, the certificate of the electoral vote of the State of Arizona seems to be regular in form and authentic and it appears…

Owlia: Watching the certification on CNN, I decided to flip through the channels to see who else was covering it.

(static clicks)

Owlia: FOX wasn’t showing the certification. Instead, they covered a rally in front of the White House, with Trump giving a speech to his followers, urging them to not give up on their claims the election was stolen. And then...

President Donald Trump: We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try and give. The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Owlia: Donald Trump, the President of the United States, on national television, had given a crowd of his supporters permission to march down to the Capitol and interfere in a democratic process. I proceeded to watch every moment of the January 6 insurrection in utter horror. Tear gas flying everywhere, rising like the tension on the Capitol steps, providing a foggy atmosphere during which you could make out the supporters scaling the walls, and breaking the windows. Absolutely unimaginable sights playing out in front of the eyes of the nation. How did we allow ourselves to become this badly divided? Don't get me wrong: I've known how divided America has been for quite a while. The numbers show since the mid-1990s, Americans have been moving like an iceberg towards the ideological extremes of their parties. According to academics and researchers alike, America is more divided now than at any time since the Civil War.

Todd Washburn: My name is Todd Washburn. I teach a course called "The Polarization of American Politics" that I've taught since the fall of 2019.

Owlia: Washburn teaches the course at the Harvard Extension School.

Washburn: The number of people who identify as Liberal or Conservative or who place themselves at one end of the scale has gone up significantly. On top of that that, ideological thinking has been on the rise. So more and more people actually think in consistent ideological terms. And therefore, the gap between, say, the average Democrat and the average Republican in terms of how they think on the issues has grown.

Owlia: To me, the parties were just two sides of the same screwed-up coin. And I’m not the only one. 27 percent of Americans, according to a recent Pew study, also hold a negative perception of both political parties. So we’ve established that things are bad. Really bad. And I want to know why. In looking for a starting point, I realized, after conversations with friends, family, and old acquaintances, the best place to begin was social media.

Washburn: The most extreme voices get easily amplified on social media. 

Owlia: After all, social media blew up around the time the cracks of polarization started to show in America. Since the launch of Facebook, arguably the most popular social media network in the world in 2004, the number of Americans who use social media has gone from 5 percent to, now, 72 percent. That's unprecedented in the world of communication. However, as great as social media has been, and it has been great, there is a dark side that, only now, is starting to be acknowledged.

Ceally Smith: I would say that I was a believer of QAnon at one time.

Owlia: Ceally Smith is a 34-year-old entrepreneur, mother-of-two, and mental health advocate based in Kansas City, Missouri, who was introduced to QAnon by her then-boyfriend.

Smith: I think for him, he wanted us to have that connection. So it was important for him to have it be important for me, too, for us to grow closer together. And it just wasn't, it just wasn't something I was interested in. It didn't seem like a logical thing to put my time and energy into, but I knew for him it was important, so, I would do my best to try to act interested. But that's how I first got introduced to the movement and everything that was involved in it at first.

Owlia (in conversation with Smith): In the 2016 election between Trump and Hillary, you didn't vote, correct?

Smith: I didn’t.

Owlia (in conversation with Smith): So describe to me the moment when you first got into QAnon.

Smith: The shift for me was when Epstein was arrested for the allegations that he was being arrested for.

Owlia: QAnon theories had claimed that then-financier Jeffrey Epstein was a serial sexual predator. 

Smith: "Wait a minute. I have been hearing so much through my partner that I was with at the time and seeing his posts or other people comment about this Epstein character, and now he's being arrested. So now there's some validity to what this movement is saying." And I decided to do my own research, and that is when it started for me.

Owlia: What I learned from Ceally is that this is more than a political issue. The problems with social media and political polarization come from multiple angles, each showing us different avenues that we need to explore to fully understand it all. Sure, there may not be an easy conclusion. In life, there rarely is. Indeed, one of the issues of storytelling on any level, including the news, is that we tend to package things into a neat, tidy narrative. Reality does not have that luxury at the end of the day. I’m reminded of Socrates’ famous remark, "The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing." With that inspiration, let's blank slate this issue for the moment and start with what we do know. It seems that America is more polarized than ever, and there are many reasons for it. It didn’t appear out of thin air. It’s been around for a while. However, such extreme polarization has only become tremendously apparent within the past five years. One of these reasons is social media. The problems with social media, for all intents and purposes, have been known for almost a decade and have not only created and pronounced cracks in the foundation of the house known as American society, but it has also found ways to divide it further. Once again, Todd Washburn from Harvard University.

Washburn: Social media, obviously, the Internet, that sort of thing, have allowed us all to sort ourselves into online and geographic communities of people with whom we share similar values and lifestyle choices. You know, it's almost a cliche to say that we all live in our own information bubbles. But it's true, it's a cliche because it's true, and the Internet and the social media allows us to do that.

Owlia: We must look to the future, where we will find solutions and ensure that social media is safer for us and future generations, and ultimately creates a culture that rewards people who share the truth and punishes those who spread lies and misinformation, including the companies themselves. But before all that, we must look at our present in more ways than one. We must examine America's most influential people and companies who create the products with no limitations and no regulation.

Mark Zuckerberg: When we first launched, we were hoping for 400, 500 people. Harvard didn’t have a face book, so, that’s the gap that we were trying to fill and, now, we’re at 100 thousand people, so, who knows where we’re going next?

Owlia: We must understand the people of America who use the products and fall prey…

Smith: Further getting into QAnon and digging deeper and spending time researching and taking that time away from my business, most importantly, my family, and above all, my, my own health, I started mentally breaking.

Owlia: The algorithms that not only bring people back to the product but also create a perpetual spread of misinformation…

Sharon McMahon: You get fed more information that they, that the algorithm believes you're interested in. So, it increases these sort of silos of, you know, or echo chambers, if you will. That leads us to believe, you know, a certain viewpoint and that this is the correct viewpoint because we're constantly surrounding ourselves with only that viewpoint; it becomes difficult to see what other people are thinking.

Owlia: And the political agents who feed the fire and system while receiving the money from companies and doing very little despite the warnings…

Frances Haugen: During my time at Facebook, I came to realize a devastating truth: almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside of Facebook.

Owlia: However, the most critical and probably the most challenging thing we need to investigate, not just in complexity but also introspectively, is ourselves. We must look inward, one of the most difficult things to do, and maybe even consider that we're not only part of the problem but also vulnerable. We must realize that our overall human nature, behaviors, and evolutionary process that have helped us survive for millions of years are being taken advantage of. If we don't stop it, we could lose even more than we already have. Let's put the house together again. But first, we need to learn from our history and our mistakes. Time to fire up the DeLorean.